2004-02-20 | "Depleted uranium is a crime against God
and humanity."
Dr. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army health physicist

The international dispatches about the U.S. invasion
and occupation of Iraq - replete with graphic details
about overcrowded hospitals, U.S. cluster bomb
shrapnel buried in the flesh of children, babies
deformed by U.S. depleted uranium, farms and markets
destroyed by U.S. bombs  do not make pleasant
reading. The mounting evidence from the invasion of
Iraq establishes what many Americans may not want to
face: that the highest leaders of our land violated
many international agreements relating to the rules of
war. Unless we address the war crimes of the Bush
administration - and the prima facie evidence is
overwhelming - we betray our conscience, our country,
and our own faith in democracy.

The United States is bound by customary law and
international laws of war: the Hague Conventions of
1889 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and the
Nuremberg Conventions adopted by the United Nations,
December 11, 1945 - all of which set limits beyond
which, by common consent, decent peoples will not go.
Under the Constitution, all treaties are part of the
supreme law of the land. Humanitarian law rests on a
simple principle: that human rights are measured by
one yardstick. Without that principle, all
jurisprudence descends into mere piety and power. Nor
do violations of the laws of war by one belligerent
vindicate the war crimes of another.

Of all the violations of the laws of war by the
highest officials of our country, none is more
alarming or portentous than the widespread,
premeditated use of depleted uranium in Iraq. Eleven
miles north of the Kuwaiti border on the "Highway of
Death," disabled tanks, armored personnel carriers,
gutted public vehicles  the mangled metals of Desert
Storm - are resting in the desert, radiating nuclear
energy. American soldiers who lived for three months
in the toxic wasteland now suffer from fatigue, joint
and muscle pain, respiratory ailments - a host of
maladies often known as the Gulf War Syndrome.

Ever since the end of Desert Storm, when the Pentagon
unloaded 350 tons of depleted uranium, American
officials have been well aware of the health hazards
of the residue that is collected from the processing
of nuclear fuel. When President Bush and the Pentagon
authorized the use of depleted uranium for the
shock-and-awe campaign against Iraq in March 1983, the
Bush administration not only committed a war crime
against the people of Iraq, it demonstrated reckless
disregard for the health and safety of American
troops.

Article 23 of the Geneva Convention IV is clear and
unambiguous: "It is forbidden to employ poison or
poisoned weapons, to kill treacherously individuals
belonging to the hostile nation or army, to employ
arms, projectiles or material calculated to cause
unnecessary suffering." The Geneva Protocol of 1925
explicitly prohibits "asphyxiating, poisonous or other
gasses, and all analogous liquids, materials or
devices."

Depleted uranium is much denser than lead and enables
U.S. weapons to penetrate steel, a great advantage in
modern war. But under the Geneva Conventions, "the
means of injuring the enemy are not unlimited." When
DU munitions explode, the air is bathed in a fine
radioactive dust, which carries on the wind, is easily
inhaled, and eventually enters the soil, pollutes
ground water, and enters the food chain. Unexploded
casings gradually oxidize, releasing more uranium into
the environment. Handlers of depleted uranium in the
U.S. are required to wear masks and protective
clothing - a requirement that Iraqi and American
soldiers, not to mention civilians, are unable to
fulfill.

After the Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi hospitals recorded a
surge in cancer and birth defects. Hospital statistics
from Basra show that in 1988 there were 11 cancer
cases per 100,000 people. By 2001, after schools,
homes, and entire neighborhoods were leveled from the
air, the number increased to 116 per 100,000. Breast
and lung cancer and leukemia showed up in all areas
contaminated by depleted uranium. Dr. Jawad al-Ali,
cancer specialist at the Basra Training Hospital,
noted that, "The only factor that has changed here
since the 1991 war is radiation." Thirteen members of
his staff, all present when the hospital area was
bombed, are now cancer patients.

The Christian Science Monitor recently sent reporters
to Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted
uranium. Staff writer Scott Peterson saw children
playing on top of a burnt-out tank near a vegetable
stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that had
been destroyed by armor-piercing shells coated with
depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective
clothing, he pointed his Geiger counter toward the
tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background
radiation.

The families who survived the tragic decade of
sanctions, even the children who recently survived the
bombing of Baghdad, may not survive the radiated
aftermath of military profligacy. Uranium remains
radioactive for two billion years. That's a long time
for reconstruction.

According to Dr. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army health
physicist who led the first clean-up of depleted
uranium after the Gulf War, "Depleted uranium is a
crime against God and humanity." Rokke's own crew, a
hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the
fine dust. "When we went to the Gulf, we were all
really healthy," he said. After performing clean-up
operations in the desert (mistakenly without
protective gear), thirty members of his staff died,
and most others - including Rokke himself-developed
serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway
disease, neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney
problems. "We warned the Department of Defense in 1991
after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond
comprehension."

The growing outcry against the use of depleted uranium
is not a matter of minor legal technicalities. The
laws of war prohibit the use of weapons that have
deadly and inhumane effects beyond the field of
battle. Nor can weapons be legally deployed in war
when they are known to remain active, or cause harm
after the war concludes. The use of depleted uranium
is a crime whose horrific consequences have yet to run
their course.

Years ago in the midst of France's brutal war in
Algeria, the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre admonished
the French intelligentsia:

"It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know
very well all the crimes committed in our name. It's
not at all right that you do not breathe a word about
them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of
having to stand in judgment of yourself. I am willing
to believe that at the beginning you did not realize
what was happening; later, you doubted whether such
things could be true; but now you know, and still you
hold your tongues."

As a writer I do not have a set of words to describe
what 142 Degrees in the shade is like. I've seen 120
D. in Phoenix and 110 D in the spa's sauna I use. One
hundred forty-two degrees leaves me speechless. Try to
imagine 142 D temperature while wearing a helmet, long
sleeve shirt, long pants, a bullet proof vest, boots,
and carrying a 70 pound pack.

By contrast the Inuit of Alaska and Canada have
thirty-seven words to precisely talk about different
kinds of snow.

So, since the temperature is heating up in Iraq it
seemed like a good time to float this story to
different Internet sites and news publications. There
was one story in 2003 of one 19 year old British
soldier whose military job was to work in a British
tank. In Iraq. In the summer. Word is, from London,
that he forgot to drink enough water and he literally
cooked in his tank.

But, this story is not about the temperature in Iraq.
You can bet, though, the weather will be really
important for those Americans unfortunate enough to
still be in Iraq this summer.

This story is about American weapons built with
Uranium components for the business end of things.
Just about all American bullets, 120 mm tank shells,
missiles, dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and 2,000 pound
bombs, cruise missiles, and anything else engineered
to help our side in the war of us against them has
Uranium in it. Lots of Uranium.

In the case of a cruise missile, as much as 800 pounds
of the stuff. This article is about how much
radioactive uranium our guys, representing us, the
citizens of the United States, let fly in Iraq. Turns
out they used about 4,000,000 pounds of the stuff,
give or take. That is a bunch.

Now, most people have no idea how much Four Million
Pounds of anything is, much less of Uranium Dust (UD),
which this stuff turns into when it is shot or
exploded. Suffice it to say it is about equal to 1,333
cars that weigh three thousand pounds per car. That is
a lot of cars; but, we can imagine what a parking lot
with one thousand three hundred and thirty three cars
is like. The point is: this was and is an industrial
strength operation. It is still going on, too.

No sir-ee, putting Four Million Pounds of Radioactive
Uranium Dust (RUD) on the ground in Iraq was a
definitely "on-purpose" kind of thing. It was not
"just an accident." We, the citizens of the United
States, through our kids in the Army, did this on
purpose.

When the uranium bullets, missiles, or bombs hit
something or explode most of the radioactive uranium
turns instantly to very, very small dust particles,
too fine to even see. When US Troopers or Iraqis
breathe even a tiny amount into their lungs, as little
as One Gram, it is the same as getting an X-Ray every
hour for the rest of their shortened life.

The uranium cannot be removed, there is no treatment,
there is no cure. The uranium will long outlast the
Veterans' and the Iraqis' bodies though; for, you see,
it lasts virtually forever.

But, it gets worse. Seems an Admiral who is the former
Chief of the Naval Staff of India wanted to know how
much radiation this represented. He also wanted to
express the amount in a figure that the world,
especially the non American world, could easily
understand.

The Admiral decided to figure out how many Nagasaki
Atom Bombs it would take to deliver the equivalent of
the total amount of radiation deployed in Iraq in 2003
in Four Million Pounds of uranium.

The Admiral also wanted to figure out how much
radiation the United States Military Forces have
deployed in the last Five American Wars, the so-called
Five Nuclear Wars.

That is a simple enough task for somebody like the
Naval Chief of Staff for a country that is a member of
the Nuclear Club. Using the Nagasaki bomb for the
measuring stick is a particularly gruesome twist,
though. For those of you in the States who do not know
it, the United States Military Forces dropped two
nuclear Bombs on Japan at the close of World War II.
The whole world remembers that.

One Atom Bomb was dropped by Americans on the city of
Hiroshima, the other on the city of Nagasaki three
days later. About 170,000 people were incinerated
immediately. It was a really big deal.

It is a measuring stick that plays very well in the
rest of the world; but, not very well on Fox News
(Fair & Balanced) (c) or the rest of the Fox-like
American media. The Department of Energy still lists
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations as "tests." The
admiral released the data months ago at a scientific
conference in India. This article is the first report
of the data in the United States. It will first be
released on the Internet.

The admiral in India calculated the number of
radioactive atoms in the Nagasaki bomb and compared it
with the number in the 4,000,000 pounds of uranium
left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now, believe me, it is
a lot more complex than that; but, that is essentially
what the experts in India did.

How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation
loosed in the 2003 Iraq war? Answer: About 250,000
Nuclear Bombs.

How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation
loosed in the last Five American Nuclear Wars? Answer:
About 400,000 Nuclear Bombs.

Who would do something like this?

We would. The only people in the history of the world
to engage in Nuclear Wars are Americans, citizens of
the United States. Allegedly, the Germans and Japanese
of WWII also wanted to engage in nuclear wars, except
the American Military beat them to the draw, so to
speak.

Respected academic scholars could debate forever
whether or not Herr Hitler, Fuhrer of Germany, would
have deployed uranium munitions in the Sudetenland if
the weapons had been available. Certainly the Germans
knew just as much about uranium wars as we did at the
time. It seems doubtful that Adolph Hitler would have
ordered the use of uranium munitions there because the
Sudetenland was so close to the Fatherland, Nazi
Germany.

An American General named Leslie Groves was in charge
of the bomb making operation called The Manhattan
Project. In 1943 The War Department knew exactly what
uranium bullets and bombs were good for.

If the nuclear weapons did not detonate in Japan, the
use of uranium bullets and bombs were the fall back
position. It was not till Ronald Reagan was President
in 1980 did the re-named Defense Department resurrect
the deadly radioactive uranium bullets, bombs, and
missiles. No wonder his popular nick-name was Ronnie
Ray-Guns.

The American Military knew the symptoms of radiation
poisoning in 1943 too; starting with the irritated
sore throat through to an agonizing death from being
cooked from the inside out.

President Bush promised to invade twelve countries in
the 2003 State of the Union speech. I believe the man.
For some reason, some misguided Americans do not
believe him, or think he was "exaggerating." The rest
of the world has every reason to believe him, though.

Not to worry, the President has plenty of raw material
for radioactive uranium munitions left. There are more
than 77,000 Tons stored at the 103 nuclear waste
plants and the several Nuclear Weapons Labs in the US.
Each one makes another 250 pounds of radioactive
material a day for radioactive bullets, bombs, and
missiles. Not to put too fine a point on it; but, that
is enough for 40.5 more gloriously successful
campaigns like the 2003 Nuclear War in Iraq.

Every year about this time the Southern winds leave a
fine desert sand on the windshields of cars parked
outside in Continental Europe and Britain. Soon this
sand dust will carry a surprise. Thanks to the
Americans. Thanks to us. We did this to the world.
And, we wonder why they hate and despise us so.

These uranium weapons' indiscriminate killing effect
gives a whole new meaning to the age old term: cannon
fodder. In Iraq, what goes around, comes around. If
not the uranium munitions themselves, the uranium dust
will be in the bodies of our returning armed forces,
time bombs slowly ticking away the lives of the
gullible and the ignorant with their very own internal
radiation source, the cannon fodder of the 21st
Century American Nuclear Wars.

Put your ending to this article next.

A lot of people have done everything we can think of
to stop these nuclear wars. Even more specifically to
stop the use of uranium as a munition and shut down
the nuclear power plants. We have tried and failed for
years. Why don't you give it a try? Can't hurt
anything! Write what steps you would take to turn this
situation around. Contact me at: bobnichols@....

Bob Nichols writes in Oklahoma City and is the
Editorial writer for DemoOkie.com. Bob Nichols is a
contributing writer for LiberalSlant, Democratic
Underground, OnlineJournal, AmericaHeldHostage, and
other online dot com publications. Mr. Nichols is a
frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer and
other print publications. He lives and works in
Oklahoma. He is a member of CASE -- Citizens' Action
for Safe Energy, and President of the Carrie Dickerson
Foundation. CASE has successfully killed two serious,
well funded attempts to build Nuclear Power Plants in
Oklahoma and several attempts to site what is now
known as the "Yucca Mountain Reactor Dump" in
Oklahoma. All these efforts to build nuclear
facilities have failed. CASE won every time.